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All About Abs

Regardless of gender, I think the top concern for most people is looking leaner through their midsection.

Doing crunches alone doesn’t make your waist smaller. You need to build more lean muscle for a higher metabolism, do cardiovascular exercise to burn fat, and watch your overall diet.

A Quick Lesson

How your core muscles move your body:

rectus abdominis: spinal flexion

spinal erectors: extension of spine

obliques muscles: rotation and lateral flexion

transverse abs: stabilization of spine

Every move you perform initiates from your core. For that reason alone, you should be incorporating at least a couple of core exercises in weekly.

I usually have beginners start with stabilizing moves (like plank and deadbug) to develop a base level of strength. From there, you add in mobility exercises (sit ups and rotation) to further increase your strength.

Which way to do you perform your crunches (upper rectus abdominis)? Hoping it’s with your elbows back and your neck in a neutral position. You can also reach arms out forward, or cross your hands over your chest to make it a little easier.

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2. Supermans

You can either hold “superman” for a period of time or you can perform repetitions of the exercise for lower back (erector spinae) strength.

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3. Deadbug variation (total core exercise):

Start with both legs up

Lower right leg down

Bend right knee in towards chest as much as you can

Straighten right leg back out

Lift right leg back up to starting position (focusing on abs – not hip flexors).

I’m back here again and I guess I got another e-mail for this post because someone just replied to your post yesterday. I’m glad for it too because even though I have read your entire post, I didn’t think further about some other things you talked about in here. I’ll be researching the Internet about building lean muscle for a higher metabolism. My metabolism rate is normal. I wish it was high. I so want to be those people who can eat whatever they want and how much without packing extra fat on my body. In yesterday’s post, I have an image that I downloaded from the Google Images for abdominal fat. That isn’t me but the fat that’s on my body is close to what I have on me now.

It’s hard to type just a few words on the subject, but start by looking up basal metabolic rate (bmr). Basically, it takes more calories to feed a muscle to function. So the more lean muscle you have, the higher your bmr is.

Hi again…I don’t have a scale at home, so I’ll have a visit with the GP or find a community centre and go there, if they have a scale or somewhere else near home. I’m afraid to look at the scale. I’m afraid that it will show that my weight is higher now than it ever was whenever I had gained significant weight.

I’ve used the BMR calculator (http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/) and if my current weight is what I think it is (180 pounds) it’s 1570. No wonder I’m not losing the weight when I’m maintaining a BMR of 1570 with slices of cake. I want to be 155 pounds, and the BMR for this 1460. Wow!

You should go see your physician too – to see exactly what you weigh. The BMR calculator is an estimate – like all math equations. You should log daily food/activity too to see exactly what your energy balance is. There are many free online journals to do that. mypryramidtracker.gov or fitday.com are examples of this.

Disclaimer:

Not all exercises are suitable for everyone. To reduce the risk of injury, consult your doctor before starting this or any new exercise program.

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